Life Beyond COVID: Young people in Blyth
A shared project by Citizens Advice Northumberland and Silx Teen Bar [August and September 2020]
Introduction
As a result of the invitation given by the Lords COVID-19 Committee, joint research was undertaken by Silx Teen Bar, in Blyth, Northumberland, and Citizens Advice Northumberland.
The aim of the work was to enable young people who use Silx, youth workers and advisors at Citizens Advice, to identify the impact of the virus on young people’s lives and their perceptions of life in a post COVID world.
The partnership
Silx Teen Bar www.silxteen.com has been in existence for twenty years. Traditionally, it has provided a safe
environment for young people, 11 to 19 years old, to
meet friends and youth workers, and for 16 to 25-year-olds to receive employment support and guidance from an experienced and qualified staff team. Most of the young people with whom Silx interacts live in, or close to, Croft Ward, one of the most deprived electoral wards in England [Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government 2019].
Citizens Advice Northumberland
www.citizensadvicenorthumberland.org.uk started in
1939 and has constantly offered a wide range of
free, independent and confidential advice ever
since. Today it operates from 10 locations covering all of Northumberland – a county of over 3000 square miles with a population of 322,000. The pandemic has generated an increased need for the services of this organisation. This will probably be the case for some considerable time as the economic damage of the pandemic is felt by more and more people.
As a result of the pandemic both organisations stopped their primary method of face-to-face engagement, towards the end of March 2020,